Then we went over the results of my latest blood tests. Everything was good. Everything was normal. Except one. There was one hormone that was much higher than it should be and that was a side effect of Risperidone, one of my first line of defense meds against the Polar Bears. So we decided, since I'd been feeling so "normal", so good, to stop the Risperidone. My main medication, Lithium, should be able to handle things, he figured.
So that's what I did, I stopped the Risperidone.
Saturday was fine, another normal day.
Sunday I felt a little off, a little glum, more impatient, some paranoid thoughts began to creep in. Sleep that night was broken with many odd dreams. For hours I tossed and turned.
Monday I felt really off. Totally negative, impatient, irritable. I couldn't understand the contrast to what I'd been feeling. I got even more down because of that. At some point I realized what it must be - the meds. That night I took Risperidone again.
It wasn't in time.
I think I've described how manic episodes take over one's mind; runaway ideas, imagines, visions and so on racing through with little power to control them. Depressive episodes can be the same, though the thoughts and images are negative and there's not the same energy. Then there are the mixed episodes; the full on power of mania but not fun creative thoughts, instead very, very negative thoughts.
Somewhere back in the beginning, in describing why I first admitted myself to hospital, I believe I described my problem with suicidal thoughts. This is the danger for me and this is what returned Monday night and through Tuesday.
I was thinking on the way to work one morning this past week how to describe this episode of suicidal thoughts. As for the intensity level, they're not your garden variety "woe as me, things are going really bad, I don't want to go on" type thoughts. I've had those thoughts lots during some dark days in the past and those are to these suicidal thoughts as Bud Light is to 80 proof rum, like children's aspirin to pure morphine. Just not in the same league. These were incredibly intense, graphic and powerful. Negative thoughts, again super intense, played as background music. It's just a really wild mental ride, especially when it comes on so out of the blue and on the heels of feeling so frickin' good the previous few weeks or so.
And virtually uncontrollable. All those little 'coping mechanisms' and stuff you're supposed to use to "re-focus" negative thoughts and stuff? Bowls those over like a twenty pound bowling ball smashing though pins made of crystal. The thoughts of methods, scenes, instruments and so on come so fast and furious and vividly, like creative thoughts do in a 'good' manic episode. Just unstoppable. Relentless. And the suicidal thoughts are just as appealing as the 'good' creative thoughts. I want them. I welcome them.
But part of me recognizes the danger. I know I can't go out in a state like that or talk to anyone. I have to stay away from everything. I don't even want to go into the kitchen. All I can do is stay in my room with the lights out and try to block things out as much as possible. But through all that there's one thing and one thing only that's effective - focusing on my guardian angel. Somewhere in this violent tempest of suicidal thoughts and negative thoughts there's this tiny little voice, this tiny shred of reason that remembers her. And all I could do was repeat over and over to just hang in until her sixteenth birthday. To put all plans on hold until at least then. It took ... I don't know how long to get things settled down, I have no sense of time when this is happening. But I did it, just by focusing on that one thing, on my guardian angel.
It's really taxing though. Coming down off an episode like that is like ... hell, I don't know. I felt tired for days after.
Wednesday the Risperidone started kicking in again and by Thursday I felt fine. Friday I was back to happy and singing out loud and all those signs of being in top spirits.
So from shiny-happy, walking on sunshine one Friday to deepening darkness and not-wanting-to-live-another-day on Tuesday and back to shiny-happy, walking on sunshine on Friday again ... man, that's a wild ride even by my standards. Phew!
So. The meds. Be really, really careful with the meds.
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